s

12

.V

RIPOSTES OF

EZRA POUND

BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

POEMS
PERSONAL EXULTATIONS CANZONI

PROSE
THE
SPIRIT OF

ROMANCE

RIPOSTES
OF

EZRA POUND
WHERETO ARE APPENDED
THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF
T.
E.

HULM

WITH PREFATORY NOTE

MCMXII

STEPHEN SWIFT AND

16

CO., LTD. KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN

CONDON

Gird ou thy

star,

We'll have this out with

fate.

TO

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

CONTENTS
S1LET
IN

....
.
.

EXITUM CU1USDAM

.9 n
VAGI
.

APPARUIT

12
. . .

THE TOMB AT AKR AAR PORTRAIT D'UNE FEMME

N.Y.
.

14
17

20
21
"

A GIRL

"PHASELLUS ILLE AN OBJECT

QUIES

....
.

22

23 24 *5
31

THE SEAFARER
ECHOES:
1

ECHOES
DIEU

AN IMMORALITY
!

QU'lL LA FAIT

SALVE PONTIFEX

A a THE NEEDLE SUB MARE

o'y)/

...... ...... ........

II.
.
.

33

34
35

36 42
43
45

PLUNGE

46

A VIRGINAL

48
50
51

PAN

IS

DEAD

THE PICTURE
OF JACOPO DEL SELLAIO

THE RETURN
EFFECTS

.......
. .

52

53

OF

MUSIC

UPON

COMPANY

OF

PEOPLE
I.

II.

DEUX MOVEMENTS FROM A THING BY SCHUMANN

.
.

55

57

THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS

OF
PREFATORY NOTE
T. E.

HULME
58 60

AUTUMN MANA ABODA ABOVE THE DOCK THE EMBANKMENT

.

......
.

61

62

63

CONVERSION

64

RIPOSTES
SILET
I

WHEN
Why
There
It is

behold

how

black, im-

mortal ink

Drips from

my

deathless pen
!

should
?

ah, well-away we stop at all for

what

think
is

enough

in

what

chance to say.

enough that we once came together

is

What

the use of setting

is

it

to rime

When

it

autumn do we
of

get

spring

weather,

Or gather may time?

harsh northwindish

It is

What if
It is

enough that we once came together the wind have turned against the
;

rain

?
;

Time has seen

again
;

enough that we once came together this, and will not turn

And who

are we,

who know

that last

intent,

To plague to-morrow with

a testament

ro

IN

EXITUM CUIUSDAM
a certain one's departure

On
"

rTpIME'S
all

bitter flood

"
!

Oh, that's

very well, But where's the old friend hasn't

fallen off,

Or

slacked his hand-grip

when you

first

gripped fame
I

circle and can fairly tell have What you kept and what you've left behind I know my circle and know very well How many faces I'd have out of mind.
:

know your

ii

APPARUIT
rose

the house,

in

the

portal GOLDEN a
thee,

saw

marvel, carven in subtle stuff, a

portent.

Life died

down

in the

lamp and

flickered,

caught at the wonder.

Crimson, frosty with dew, the roses bend

where thou afar moving

drinkst in
tissue
life

in the

glamorous sun

of earth, of the air, the

golden about thee.

Green the ways, the breath of the

is

fields

thine there, the land, yet the steely going open darkly hast thou dared and the dreaded
lies

aether

parted before thee. 12

Swift at courage thou in the shell of gold,

cast-

ing a-loose the cloak of the body, earnest straight, then shone thine oriel and the

stunned light faded about thee.

Half the graven shoulder, aflash with
the
throat

strands of light inwoven about

est of all things, frail alabaster,

it,

loveli-

ah

me

swift in departing,

Clothed in goldish weft, delicately perfect, The cloth of the magical gone as wind
!

hands

Thou

a slight thing, thou in access of

dar'dst to assume this

cunning
?

THE TOMB AT AKR QAAR AM thy soul, Nikoptis. I have

I
Moved

watched
These
five millennia,

and thy dead

eyes
not, nor ever
light

answer

my

desire,
I

And thy

limbs,

wherethrough
saffron thing.

leapt aflame,

Burn not with me nor any

See, the light grass sprang

thee,

up

to pillow

And

kissed thee with a myriad grassy

;

tongues But not thou me.

have read out the gold upon

wall,

the

And

wearied out
signs.

my

thought upon the

in
all

And

there
place.

is

no new thing

this

have been kind.

jars sealed,

See, I

have

left

the

Lest thou shouldst

for

wake and whimper

have kept smooth on

And

all

thy wine. thy robes

thee.

thou unmindful

How should I forget

'

Even the river many days ago, The river, thou wast over young. And three souls came upon Thee

And And
1

came.
;

I flowed in upon thee, beat them off have been intimate with thee, known

Have

thy ways. I not touched

finger-tips,

thy

palms

and

Flowed

in,

and through thee and about

?
'

thy heels

How

came I and Thee ?

in

Was

not thee

And no sun comes to rest me in this place, And I am torn against the jagged dark,
15

And no light beats upon me, and you No word, day after day.

say

Oh And
!

could get

me out, despite the marks

work upon the door,
.

all

their crafty

Out through the

glass-green fields.

Yet it is quiet here I do not go."

16

PORTRAIT D'UNE FEMME

mind and you
are our Sargasso

| YOUR London

Sea,

has swept about you this

score years

And bright ships left you this or that in fee

Ideas, old gossip, Strange spars of

oddments

of all things,

knowledge and dimmed

lacking

wares of price. Great minds have sought you

someone

else.

You have been second always. Tragical ? No. You preferred it to the usual thing One dull man, dulling and uxorious, One average mind with one thought less,
:

each year.

Oh, you are patient,

sit

have seen you

might

Hours,

where

something
one.

have

floated up.

And now you pay

pay.

Yes,

you

richly

17

You

are a person of

some

interest,

one

comes to you

And

takes strange gain

;

Trophies fished up
tion
;

away some curious

:

suggestale for

Fact that leads nowhere

two,

and a

Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else

That might prove useful and yet never

proves,

That

never

fits

corner

or

shows
of

use,

Or

finds

its
:

hour

upon the loom

wonderful

days

The
Idols

tarnished,
;

gaudy,

old

rare inlays, These are your riches, your great store

work and ambergris and

and yet

For

all

this

sea-hoard

of

deciduous

things,

Strange woods

half
:

sodden,

and new

brighter stuff

18

In the slow float of differing light and

No

deep, there

is

nothing

In the whole

and
Nothing

all,

that's quite

your own.

Yet

this is you.

N.Y.

MY
Now

City,

my
!

beloved,

my

white

Ah, slender,
Listen
will

Listen to me, and breathe into thee a soul.

reed, attend

Delicately

upon the

me

do I know that I am mad, For here are a million people surly with
traffic ;

This

is

no maid.

Neither could I play upon any reed if I had

one.

My

City,

my

beloved,
breasts,

Thou Thou

art a

maid with no

art slender as a silver reed.

Listen to me, attend

me

And I will breathe into thee And thou shalt live for ever.

a soul,

20

A GIRL
tree has entered

The sap has ascended my arms, The tree has grown in my breast Downward, The branches grow out of me, like arms.
Tree you
are,
are,

THE

my

hands,

Moss you

You

are violets with wind above them.

so high

child

you

are,

And

all this is folly

to the world.

21

'PHASELLUS ILLE"
papier-mache, which you see,

my THIS Saith 'twas the worthiest

friends,
Its

of editors.

mind was made up in the seventies," Nor hath it ever since changed that concoction.
It works to represent that school of

"

thought

Which brought the hair-cloth chair to such

perfection,

Nor will the horrid threats of Bernard Shaw Shake up the stagnant pool of its convictions
;

Nay, should the deathless voice of all the world Speak once again for its sole stimulation, Twould not move it one jot from left to
right.

Come Beauty barefoot from

the Cyclades,

She'd find a model for St Anthony In this thing's sure decorum and behaviour.
22

AN OBJECT
thing, that

hath a code and

not a THIS Hath

core,

acquaintance be affections, might

set

where

And

nothing now Disturbeth his reflections.

QUIES
is

another of our ancient loves.

THIS the
Pass

and
a
;

be

silent,

Rullus,

for

day
something
since
this

Hath lacked

lady passed
marginal.

Hath lacked a something.

Twas

but

24

THE SEAFARER
(From
I

the early

A nglo-Saxon
self

text)

for

MAY

my own

song's truth
in

reckon,

Journey's jargon,

how

harsh

days endured Hardship

oft.
I

Bitter breast-cares have

abided,
care's hold,

Known on my keel many a And dire sea-surge, and

spent

there

oft

Narrow nightwatch nigh the

While she tossed close to
afflicted,

ship's

head
Coldly

cliffs.

My

feet

were by

frost
;

benumbed.

Chill its chains are

Hew my

chafing sighs heart round and hunger begot Mere-weary mood. Lest man know not
loveliest liveth,

That he on dry land

List

care-wretched, on ice-cold sea, Weathered the winter, wretched outcast

I,

how

Deprived of

my

kinsmen
25

Hung
There

with hard

ice-flakes,

where

hail-

scur flew,

And
Did

heard naught save the harsh sea ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan
I

cries,

games the gannet's clamour, Sea-fowls' loudness was for me laughter, The mews' singing all my mead-drink.
for

my

Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, the stern

fell

on

In icy feathers

full oft

the eagle screamed

With spray on

his pinion.

Not any protector

May make merry man

This he
little believes,
life

faring needy.

who aye

in win-

some
ness,

Abides 'mid burghers some heavy busi-

Wealthy and wine-flushed, how

oft

weary

Must bide above

brine.

Neareth nightshade, snoweth from north, Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth
then 26

Corn of the coldest. knocketh now

Nathless there
that

The

heart's

thought

on
alone.

high

streams

The salt-wavy tumult traverse Moaneth alway my mind's lust

That
I

fare forth, that I afar hence

Seek out a foreign fastness. For this there's no mood-lofty

earth's midst,

man

over

Not though he be given his good, but will have in his youth greed Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to
;

the faithful

But shall have his sorrow Whatever his lord will.

for sea-fare

He hath not heart

having

for harping, nor in ring-

Nor winsomeness
delight

to

wife,

nor world's
the

Nor any whit

slash,

else

save

wave's

Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on tjie water.

27

Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty

of berries,

Fields to fairness, land fares brisker,

All this

The

eager of mood, heart turns to travel so that he then

admonisheth

man

thinks

On

Cuckoo

flood-ways to be far departing. calleth with gloomy crying,

singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow, The bitter heart's blood. Burgher knows

He

not

He

the prosperous

man

what some

per-

form

Where wandering them widest draweth. So that but now my heart burst from my
breast-lock,

My mood

'mid the mere-flood,

acre,

would wander wide. On earth's shelter cometh oft to me, Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer,

Over the whale's

Whets

for

the

whale-path

the

heart

irresistibly,

O'er tracks of ocean

seeing that
this

anyhow

My

lord

deems to me

dead

life

28

loan and on land, I believe not That any earth-weal eternal standeth

On

Save there be somewhat calamitous That, ere a man's tide go, turn it to twain.
Disease or oldness or sword-hate

Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body. And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after-

Laud

of the living, boasteth

some

last

word, That he will work ere he pass onward, Frame on the fair earth 'gainst foes his
malice,

Daring ado, So that all men

.

shall

honour him

after

And his laud beyond them remain

English,

'mid the

Aye, for ever, a lasting life's-blast, Delight mid the doughty.

Days

little

durable,

And

all

arrogance of earthen riches,

lords like those gone.

There come now no kings nor Caesars

Nor gold-giving

29

Howe'er in mirth most magnified, Whoe'er lived in life most lordliest, Drear all this excellence, delights undurable
!

Waneth

Tomb

the watch, but the world holdeth. hideth trouble. The blade is layed

low.

Earthly glory ageth and seareth.

No man
But age

at all going the earth's gait, fares against him, his face paleth,

Grey-haired

he groaneth, companions,

knows gone

Lordly

men

are to earth o'ergiven,

flesh-cover,

Nor may he then the

life

whose

Nor Nor

ceaseth, eat the sweet nor feel the sorry,

stir

hand nor think

in

mid

heart,

And though he

strew the grave with gold, His born brothers, their buried bodies Be an unlikely treasure hoard.

ECHOES
I

GUIDO ORLANDO, SINGING

me
Lady BEFITS
Past
all

praise thine empery, of Valour,

disproving

Thou

art the flower to

me

Nay, by Love's pallor Of all good loving.

Worthy
Is

to reap men's praises

he who'd gaze upon Truth's mazes.

In like

commend
refineth,

is

he,

Who,

loving fixedly,

Love so
Till

thou alone art she

In

whom

love's vested

As branch hath fairest flower Where fruit's suggested.

This great joy comes to me,

To me observing

How

swiftly thou hast

serving.

power

To pay my

ECHOES
II*
keep'st thy rose-leaf Till the rose-time will be over,

THOU
As

Think'st

thou
?

that

Death

will

kiss thee

Think'st thou that the

Dark House
?

Will find thee such a lover

I ?

Will the

new

roses miss thee

Prefer

my cloak

unto the cloak of dust

'Neath which the last year lies, For thou shouldst more mistrust

Time than
*

my

eyes.

Asclepiades, Julianus ^Egyptus.

33

AN IMMORALITY

ING we

for love
else is

Naught
I

and idleness, worth the having.

in

Though
There
is

have been

many

a land,

naught

else in living.

And

would rather have

my

sweet,

Though

rose-leaves die of grieving,

Than do high deeds in Hungary To pass all men's believing.

34

DIEU

QU'IL LA FAIT
Charles

From

U Orleans

For music
!

that mad'st her well regard

her,

and bonny For the great charms that are upon her Ready are all folk to reward her.
she
is

GOD How

so fair

Who
!

could part
spells are

him from her borders

?

When

alway renewed on her God that mad'st her well regard her, How she is so fair and bonny.

From

here to there to the sea's border,

Dame
Hath

nor damsel there's not any

of perfect charms so many. Thoughts of her are of dream's order

God

that mad'st her well regard her.

35

SALVE PONTIFEX
(A. C. S.)

after

ONEHigh
And And

one they leave thee,

melodies
as

Priest of lacchus,

Intoning thy intone

winds

The whisperings

of leaves

on sunlit days.

the sands are

many

the seas beyond the sands are one In ultimate, so we here being many
;

Are unity

nathless thy compeers,

Knowing thy melody,

Lulled with the wine of thy music Go seaward silently, leaving thee sentinel
O'er

the mysteries, High Priest of lacchus.

all

For the lines of life lie under thy fingers, And above the vari-coloured strands Thine eyes look out unto the infinitude

Of the blue waves of heaven,

And even

as Triplex Sisterhood

Thoufingerest the threads knowing neither

36

Cause nor the ending,

High

Priest of lacchus,

Draw'st forth a multiplicity

Of strands, and, beholding

The colour thereof, raisest thy voice Towards the sunset,

O
And

High

Priest of lacchus

out of the secrets of the inmost

mysteries

Thou chantest strange

cles
:

far-sourced canti-

O
Life

High Priest of lacchus and the ways of Death her

!

Twin-born
part,

sister,

that

is

life's

counter-

And

of night

and the winds

of night

Silent voices ministering to the souls

Of hamadryads that hold council concealed

In streams and tree-shadowing

Forests on
hill slopes,

High

Priest of lacchus,

All the manifold

mystery
of song,

Thou makest a wine

37

And maddest thy

With

following even

And

visions of great deeds their futility,

Priest of lacchus
!

O High
Though

thy co-novices are bent to the

is

scythe

Of the magian wind that

voice of Perse-

phone, Leaving thee solitary, master of initiating Maenads that come through the

Vine-entangled ways of the forest Seeking, out of all the world,

Madness of lacchus, That being skilled in the secrets

of the

double cup They might turn the dead of the world Into paeans,

High Priest of lacchus, Wreathed with the glory of thy years

creating

of

Entangled music, Breathe

!

Now

that
thee,

the

evening

cometh

upon

38

Breathe upon
exultant

us,

that low-bowed

and

Drink wine of lacchus, that since the

conquering Hath been chiefly
contained
in

the

numbers Of them that, even as thou, have woven Wicker baskets for grape clusters Wherein is concealed the source of the

vintage, High Priest of lacchus,

Breathe thou upon us

Thy magic

in parting

Even as they thy co-novices, At being mingled with the sea,

While yet thou madest thy canticles
Serving upright before the altar That is bound about with shadows

Of dead years wherein thy lacchus Looked not upon the hills, that being Uncared for, praised not him in entirety.

High

Priest of lacchus,

Being now near to the border of the sands

39

Where the sapphire

girdle of the sea

Encinctureth the maiden

Persephone, released for the spring, Look Breathe upon us
!

The wonder

of

the thrice encinctured

mystery Whereby thou being

full

of

years art

young, Loving even this lithe Persephone That is free for the seasons of plenty

Whereby thou being young art old And shalt stand before this Persephone Whom thou lovest,
In darkness, even at that time That she being returned to her hus-

band
Shall be queen

and a maiden no
being
neither

longer,

Wherein thou

old

nor

young
Standing on the verge of the sea Shalt pass from being sand,

O High

Priest of lacchus,

And becoming wave

Shalt encircle
all

sands,

40

Being transmuted through

all

The

girdling of the sea.

High

Priest of lacchus,
!

Breathe thou upon us

Note.

This apostrophe was written three years

before Swinburne's death.

in

me

as the eternal

moods
and not

BE
And

of the bleak wind,

As

transient things are gaiety of flowers.

in the strong loneliness

Have me

of sunless cliffs
of grey waters.

Let the gods speak softly of us

In days hereafter,

The shadowy

flowers of Orcus

Remember

Thee.

42

THE NEEDLE
or the stellar tide will slip

away. COME,

Eastward avoid the hour

decline,

of its

Now

for

the needle trembles in

!

my

soul

Here have we had our vantage, the good

hour.

Here we have had our day, your day and

mine.

Come now,
pole.

before this power

shall turn against the

That bears us up,

Mock not the

to be.

flood of stars, the thing's

Love, come now, this land turns evil

slowly.

The waves bore

away.

in,

soon will they bear

43

The

treasure

is

ours,

make we

fast land

with

it.

Move we and take

favour,

the tide, with

its

next

Abide

Under some neutral

force

Until this course turneth aside.

44

SUB MARE
is,

and

is

not, I

am

sane enough,
this place

IT
Then

Since you have

come

has

hovered round me,

This fabrication built of

autumn

roses,

there's a goldish colour, different.

And one

gropes in these things as delicate Algae reach up and out beneath Pale slow green surgings of the under-

wave, 'Mid these things older than the names

they have, These things that are familiars of the god.

45

PLUNGE

WOULD

I
I

bathe myself in strangeness These comforts heaped upon me, smother me

:
!

burn,

scald so for the new,

New
Oh

friends,
!

new

faces,

Places

to be out of this,
is all I

This that

wanted

save the new.

And

you,

Love,

you the much,

sired
!

the

more

de-

Do

not

loathe

all

walls,

streets,

stones,

All mire, mist, all fog, All

ways
I

of traffic

You,

would have flow over

me

like

water,

Oh, but far out of this Grass, and low fields, and
!

hills,

And

sun,

Oh, sun enough

Out and

alone,
!

among some

Alien people

47

A VIRGINAL
no
!

Go from me.

have

left

NO,
I

her lately. will not spoil

atir

my

sheath with

lesser brightness,

For

my
ness

surrounding
;

has a new light-

Slight are her arms, yet they have

bound

me
And

straitly

left

me
;

cloaked as with a gauze of

leaves as with a subtle

aether

As with sweet
clearness.

Oh,

have picked up magic

in her near-

ness

To sheathe me half
sheathe her.

in half the things that

No, no

Go from me.

have

still

the

flavour,

Soft as spring wind that's birchen bowers.

come from

Green come the shoots, aye April

branches,

in the

As

winter's

wound with her

sleight

hand
:

she staunches, Hath of the tress a likeness of the savour

As white

their bark, so white this lady's

hours.

49

PAN
is

IS

DEAD
is

dead.
!

Great Pan

dead.

PAN

Ah

bow your

heads, ye maidens

all,

And weave ye him

There
is

his coronal.

no summer

in the leaves,
;

And

withered are the sedges How shall we weave a coronal,

floral

Or gather

pledges

That I may not say, Ladies. Death was ever a churl. That I may not say, Ladies. How should he show a reason, That he has taken our Lord away

Upon such hollow

season

THE PICTURE*

THE
And
The eyes
* "

eyes of this dead lady speak to

love,

me, For here was

was not to be

drowned

out,

here desire, not to be kissed away.

of this

dead lady speak to me.

by Jacopo
del
Sellaio

Venus

Reclining,"

(1442-93).

OF JACOPO DEL SELLAIO

T
And

HIS man knew

of love,

out the secret ways

No man
who

could paint such things did not know.

And now And you

she's gone,

are here,

who was his Cyprian, " who are " The Isles

to me.
here's the thing that lasts the whole

thing out

The eyes

of this

dead lady speak to me.

THE RETURN

EE, they return ah, see the tentative Movements, and the slow feet, The trouble in the pace and the
;

uncertain

Wavering

See, they return, one,

and by one, With fear, as half-awakened As if the snow should hesitate

;

And murmur

in the wind,

and half turn back

These were the
"
Inviolable.

Wing'd-with-Awe,"

Gods of the winged shoe With them the silver hounds,

!

sniffing the trace of air

Haie

Haie These were the swift to harry

! !

53

These the keen-scented These were the souls of blood.

;

Slow on the

leash,

pallid the leash-men

54

EFFECTS OF MUSIC UPON A COMPANY OF PEOPLE

I

DEUX MOVEMENTS
1. 2.

Temple qui

fut.

Poissons d'or.

curls back, Their souls like petals, Thin, long, spiral, Like those of a chrysanthemum curl

SOUL

Smoke-like up and back from the Vavicel, the calyx,

Pale green, pale gold, transparent,

Green

of plasma, rose-white,

Spirate like smoke,

Curled,

Vibrating,

Slowly, waving slowly.

55

O O O

Flower animate
calyx
!

crowd

of foolish people

The

petals

On

the tip of each the figure

Delicate.
See, they dance, step to step.

Flora to festival,

Twine, bend, bow,

Frolic involve ye.

Woven Woven

the step, the tread, the moving.

to the centre.

Ribands they move,

Wave, bow
Pause,
rise,

deepen in colour,

And

fold in drowsily.

II

FROM A THING BY SCHUMANN

high, floating

and welling

Their soul, moving beneath the satin, BREAST

Plied the gold threads, Pushed at the gauze above it.

The notes beat upon

this,
;

Beat and indented it Rain dropped and came and fell upon Hail and snow,

this,

My sight gone in the flurry

And

then across the white silken, Bellied up, as a sail bellies to the wind,

Over the fluid tenuous, diaphanous, Over this curled a wave, greenish, Mounted and overwhelmed it.
This

membrane
bellied out

floating above,

And

by the up-pressing

soul.

Then came a mer-host, And after them legion of Romans, The usual, dull, theatrical
!

57

THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF T. E. HULME

PREFATORY NOTE
IN publishing his Complete Poetical Works
at thirty,* Mr Hulme has set an enviable example to many of his contemporaries who have had less to say.

good for good custom, a custom fellowship and out of Tuscany and of Provence
reprinted
;
;

They

are

here

for

thirdly, for convenience, seeing their small-

ness of bulk

and

for

good memory,

seeing that they recall certain evenings

and meetings of two years gone, dull enough at the time, but rather pleasant to look back upon.
*

Mr Pound

has grossly exaggerated

my

age.

T. E. H.

58

School of Images/' which may or may not have existed, its principles were not so interesting as those of the

As

for the

"

"

inherent dynamists

"

or of Les Unani-

they were probably sounder than those of a certain French school which attempted to dispense with verbs
mistes, yet

or of the Impressionists altogether brought forth

;
:

who

"

Pink pigs blossoming upon the hillside"

their ladies to let

or of the Post-Impressionists who beseech down slate-blue hair

over their raspberry-coloured flanks. Ardoise rimed richly ah, richly and
rarely rimed
!

with framboise.
Les Imagistes, the

As

for the future,

descendants of the forgotten school of 1909, have that in their keeping.

I

refrain

from publishing

my

proposed

Historical

Memoir

of their forerunners,

because

Mr Hulme has

threatened to
E. P.

print the original propaganda.

59

AUTUMN

A
I

TOUCH
I

of

cold in the

Autumn

nightwalked abroad,
the ruddy

And saw
hedge

moon

lean over a

Like a red-faced farmer.

did not stop to speak, but nodded, And round about were the wistful stars

With white

faces like

town

children.

60

MANA ABODA
Beauty
is

the

marking-time,

the

stationary

vibration, the feigned ecstasy of an arrested impulse unable to reach its natural end.

ABODA, whose
The MANA Seems

bent form

sky in arched circle is, ever for an unknown to mourn.

:

grief

Yet on a day I heard her cry " 1 weary of the roses and the singing
poets

Josephs

all,

not

tall

enough to try."

61

ABOVE THE DOCK

k

BOVE

the quiet dock in mid night, Tangled in the tall mast's corded
height,

Hangs the moon. away

Is

What seemed

so far

but a child's balloon, forgotten after

play.

THE EMBANKMENT
(The fantasia of a fallen gentleman on a
cold, bitter night.)

in finesse of fiddles

found

ONCE,ecstasy,
In the flash of gold heels on the

hard pavement.

Now

see I
stuff of poesy.

That warmth's the very Oh, God, make small

The old star-eaten blanket of the sky, That I may fold it round me and in
comfort
lie.

CONVERSION
i

walked into .the

valley wood If E~;HTHEARTED

Till

In the time of hyacinths, beauty like a scented cloth

Cast over, stifled me. I was bound Motionless and faint of breath

By

loveliness that is her

own eunuch.

Now

pass

to the final river

As any peeping Turk

Ignominiously, in a sack, without sound, to the Bosphorus.

FINIS

PRINTED BY

NF.II.L

AND

CO., LTD.,

EDINBURGH.

Mr. Ezra Pound leapt into fame with " " 11 Personae and Exultations." More
recently he has been translating and but in expounding the Troubadours
;

this

as

stimulating volume he reappears a writer of poems as beautiful,

thoughtful and provocative as any he has produced. Appended are poems

by

Mr.

T.

E.

Hulme,

the

meta-

achieves great rhythphysician, mical beauty in curious verse-forms.

who

STEPHEN SWIFT